I support the abolishment of prisons (at least as we know them), but I don’t think this is a fair or convincing comparison. Prisons are a failed attempt to solve a real problem (what to do with people who break the rules), which is what people are concerned about. In an ideal society it will be replaced by something (rehabilitation?). Slavery solved no problem, and so needed nothing to replace it.

Climbing is great, because people tend to be friendly, and also competitive. But not competitive against each other, but rather against their own projects/goals. Makes for a super inclusive and comfortable social scene.

I wonder how much energy it would take to adjust earth’s tilt 🤔 nothing could possibly go wrong with that, right?

I can definitely empathise with the lack of trust in democracy. I’m holding out some hope that things might change once a newer generation starts to take office, but we will see.

But this failing of democracy just makes it seem all the more important that we as a people try to resist the divisiveness of modern politics and media, as that seems to be a common tool of control used by those in power.

provide them with a pathway to build power

If I understand you correctly, then I very much agree, but I don’t see this happening very much. On one side I see people saying “vote for the lesser of two evils, and then we can focus on changing the system/changing the democrat policies” without actually any clear idea how to do that. On the other side I see “don’t vote for either party, neither major party deserves to win” without any clear idea of how to give any realistic chance for a third party to win.

It is bad to normalise genocide. Did you not know this?

Here again you are using bad faith tactics to dismiss the idea that people in favour of voting might have valid reasons to, instead presenting it as if these people think normalising genocide is a good thing. This is divisive and not constructive at all.

All it takes is for one “side” to be racist and panicky…

Yes I know how quickly controversial discourse can go downhill, but to be that seems all the more reason to not allow our arguments to disintegrate, even if the other sides are.

You have to unseat and challenge with a truth that disagrees with the prevailing wisdom

I definitely agree, I think all widespread “truths” should stand up to scrutiny, but my point is about the way this is done. Challenging a truth/point of view should mean approaching the logical base of that view, and presenting an alternative with reasons why the alternative is better. But so often I see people ignoring the logical base of the other side’s viewpoint, and instead creating straw-men to attack instead, or simply just dismissing the other side entirely through one tactic or another. To be clear, this is done by all sides, I see many people dismissing the argument to vote as simply being “supportive of genocide” (which is obviously ridiculous), while people dismissing the argument to vote third party as being “stupid/ignorant” or other things to that effect, which is also obviously false.

Like you say, we are all products of our societies with different values, but the vast majority of people are reasonably smart and have good intentions. And dismissing people is not a good way of “calling them out”, it only causes further division and makes them even less likely to be receptive to your ideas. If you cannot see the reasons for someone’s beliefs (even if you strongly disagree with those reasons) then you stand very little chance of changing their mind.

I think assuming that people are completely accepting of what the administration is doing, even when they try to voice their opinions in polls, is in bad faith. They simply don’t feel they have the option to not vote. In any other democratic system I genuinely think a third party (greens?) would have a good chance to win this election, but the two party system is so entrenched (at the minimum in the minds of voters), that to not vote is seen as the functional equivalent of voting for the other side.

I’m not in the US so my opinion doesn’t really matter, but I do think that political discourse would be much more productive if people would stop talking past each other and dismissing the motivations/logic of the opposing side.